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About five hundred people live in Opportunity today
The Clark Fork burbles past between poisoned banks alongside Opportunity's pastures
The copper that wired America had a price, and Opportunity paid it.
The restoration of the Clark Fork has a price, too,
and Opportunity is paying again.
The Clark Fork wouldn't have been destroyed without the millions of tons of copper
gouged out of the ground at its headwaters.
Opportunity's ponds wouldn't be buried without the smelter that sent Butte's treasure
out into the world.
What once polluted the Clark Fork by accident and neglect is now being visited
on Opportunity by design.
In another decade
the river's banks and bottom will be spread out atop Opportunity's dusty plateau's
miles from where they are today.
This landscape is disappearing and I want to remember it.